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Decline Game Shilling on Codex: Accepted or Not?

whatevername

Arcane
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Sep 2, 2013
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Who cares about something called AoD, whatever that is. If you read the strategy forum, half of the posters are either shills or complete retards because all games in the past decade suck and have shit AI, but they keep trying to tell you how great some shitty strategy game is.
 

Goral

Arcane
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The Real Fanboy
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They shilled on (...) rpgwatch (...)
Just noticed this. Not sure about Lurker King (although after quick search I don't see anyone under that name there) but I don't have an account there, the site is too insignificant. I would humbly request a link to his posts (or are you talking out of your ass again)?
 
Unwanted

golgo21

Unwanted
Shitposter
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Feb 12, 2017
Messages
237
Who cares about something called AoD, whatever that is. If you read the strategy forum, half of the posters are either shills or complete retards because all games in the past decade suck and have shit AI, but they keep trying to tell you how great some shitty strategy game is.

eador genesis with new horizons mod is good,not a 10/10 game but close to it.
 

Ismaul

Thought Criminal #3333
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Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech A Beautifully Desolate Campaign My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
UR was the first CRPG with a legit stealth system
No. Arcanum.

It had patrols, day night cycles, sound dissipation depending on materials, people going to sleep and locking doors, people actually keeping their stuff in a safe, bank robberies...
 

toro

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
14,031
A shill, also called a plant or a stooge, is a person who publicly helps or gives credibility to a person or organization without disclosing that they have a close relationship with the person or organization.

It pretty much covers the situation.
What close relationship? Are they working for us? No. Did we ask them to spread awareness? No. They are enthusiastic fans who happened to like AoD a lot. I'm sorry that it bothers you a LOT, but that's all there's to it.

1) They are part of you testing group which implies that you have off-forum conversations with them (mail, messenger and so on).
You can't be serious, right? I know playing detective is cool and all but what you're doing isn't healthy.

First, being a member of a testing group means access to a testing subforum where the testers can discuss things without spoiling others. Darth Roxor, Eyestabber, and the guys from RPG France had access to the same subforum. Creating that group was easier than giving them individual access. The group was created 2 weeks before DR release, so it's not some kinda long-term AoD promo operation you've busted. I don't need to have off-forum conversations with the testers.

Do you have problems reading?

I said "They are part of you testing group which implies that you have off-forum conversations with them (mail, messenger and so on)." and you reply was "being a member of a testing group means access to a testing subforum where the testers can discuss things without spoiling others."

You have a communication tool with them that is private (non-transparent) and also not available to regular AoD players therefore technically my statement is correct.

Second, I've already explained why shilling doesn't work, so why the fuck would you think that I would want to recruit anyone to annoy you on the Codex of all places? I was one of the admins here, I have 25,000 posts, what makes you think I need anyone to promote the game here or elsewhere?

First, your are working with your personal assumptions which cannot be proven true or otherwise.

Seconds, according to the thread on your own forum, it seems that it worth spending time on shilling the game. Therefore allow me to be skeptic about the usefulness of this marketing method.

2) They used your forum to coordinate this kind of operation.

In fact in that thread Goral is spewing confidential information like this:

32858310325_e2b07d4d8e_o.png


How the fuck does he know that the game is not selling too well?
Really? Confidential info? I post frequent sales update on the Codex, there's Steamspy, and then there's the number of reviews on Steam which directly corresponds to the number of copies sold.

I'm wrong about the confidential information regarding the game sales (the game was in EA state at that point). I apologize for that.

However I like how you ignore the fact that they used your forum to plan their shilling operation.

3) You were part of this operation - with intention or without intention.

32050629013_b6371e9762_o.png


He down-voted all the negative reviews regardless of the fact that they made sense or not. And you thanked him.
I thanked him for writing a positive review, which is a common courtesy. I've never asked anyone to downvote negative reviews (in fact the second top review right now is a negative one). When he asked what else he can do, instead of asking him to post on every forum he could find, I thanked him politely because we neither do it nor need it.

I would believed you if you stated *THEN* in that post that it's not alright to down-vote negative reviews without a reason however now you are just lying.












Look, I'm not detective and I'm sure as hell I did not want to spend half a day on this crap but you show a surprisingly lack of ethic in regard to this topic.

The differences between their operation and a proper astroturfing operation are these: you didn't plan for it, you didn't coordinate with them and you did not pay them. However everything else is the same.

In the book Grassroots for Hire: Public Affairs Consultants in American Democracy, Edward Walker defines "astroturfing" as public participation that is perceived as heavily incentivized, as fraudulent (claims are attributed to those who did not make such statements), or as an elite campaign masquerading as a mass movement. Although not all campaigns by professional grassroots lobbying consultants meet this definition, the book finds that the elite-sponsored grassroots campaigns often fail when they are not transparent about their sources of sponsorship and/or fail to develop partnerships with constituencies that have an independent interest in the issue. Walker highlights the case of Working Families for Wal-Mart, in which the campaign's lack of transparency led to its demise.

A study published in the Journal of Business Ethics examined the effects of websites operated by front groups on students. It found that astroturfing was effective at creating uncertainty and lowering trust about claims, thereby changing perceptions that tend to favor the business interests behind the astroturfing effort. The New York Times reported that "consumer" reviews are more effective, because "they purport to be testimonials of real people, even though some are bought and sold just like everything else on the commercial Internet." Some organizations feel their business is threatened by negative comments, so they may engage in astroturfing to drown them out. Online comments from astroturfing employees can also sway the discussion through the influence of groupthink.

My recommendation for you is to forget about this thread because it was not about you or your game. It was about two or more imbeciles which are shilling for free.

I've updated the thread name to be make it more clear that is not about AoD.

If you continue defending them then I would say that you have ulterior motive which will not reflect nicely on your reputation.
 
Self-Ejected

Lurker King

Self-Ejected
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Jan 21, 2015
Messages
1,865,419
You really think that when someone reads Goral's posts on the Codex they feel a strong and sudden urge to buy the game?
Ouch.

We (and by "we" I mean everyone who sperg about cRPGs on the Codex), don't debate these things to brainwash people who disagree with us. We debate these things as a matter of intelectual principle, because we like to talk about these subjects, etc.
 

toro

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
14,031
Who cares about something called AoD, whatever that is. If you read the strategy forum, half of the posters are either shills or complete retards because all games in the past decade suck and have shit AI, but they keep trying to tell you how great some shitty strategy game is.

True. But most of those retards are staying on their own play-ground.

I like Underrail and I post in the UR sub-forum. I wrote one-line review on Steam about UR and that's about it.

However these fucks are doing much more:

1) Goral and Lurker King are derailing any thread from AoD sub-forum. No AoD criticism is accepted.
2) They are derailing any thread from this forum which tangentially touches AoD somehow. See the GOTY thread.
3) Goral is going out of his way to shill for AoD in the Underrail sub-forum.
4) They downvote all negative reviews on Steam. Please check AoD review on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/230070/
*Each negative review has at least one downvote or funny vote. And almost all of them have comments from Vince. It seems that the guy has problems with criticism.
5) Goral is going out of his way to shill for AoD in the Steam Underrail community forum. TBH the only good thing he did for UR was to write a positive review which starts with the sentence "AoD is better".
6) They wrote multiple positive reviews for AoD on Steam, GoG, Metacritic and so on.
7) They are doing this shit 24/7. Non-stop.


According to Goral they are not doing this shit on RpgWatch but it seems RpgCodex is fair game.

I know a lot of people are making fun of me but I would tell them this: Please wait until a game you like is on their shit list :)
 
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Self-Ejected

Lurker King

Self-Ejected
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Jan 21, 2015
Messages
1,865,419
They are derailing any thread from this forum which tangentially touches AoD somehow. See the GOTY thread.

That’s like saying Rogue was derailing every thread into discussions about PoE. If a game has controversial game design, people will be naturally inclined to debate about it. AoD has a controversial game design and ignores some features that are dear to some players. That’s why some people think it is important to discuss these games instead of the wonders of killing rathounds in a giant map.

Goral is going out of his way to shill for AoD in the Underrail sub-forum.

That’s because some of the Underrail fans think that in order to praise the game, you need to diminish AoD with unfounded criticisms. Despite all your talk about our fanboysm, we both rate Underrail highly on the incline poll, and we both said many positive things about the game in many occasions, including in the sub-forum of ITS. You, on the other hand, has only negative things to said about AoD without knowing nothing about the game, because you just want to win whatever is this insane territorial dispute. The real war is not between Underrail and Age of Decadence, but a war between them and other medium, or triple-A, studios that keep lowering the standards of game design and making people believe that shallow isometric games are new classics. And they are winning the cultural war. In case you haven't noticed, a popamole game was the most liked game in the incline poll.
 
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Goral

Arcane
Patron
The Real Fanboy
Joined
May 4, 2008
Messages
3,552
Location
Poland
Compare:
They shilled on codex, rpgwatch, steam, gog, metacritic, rps and others. It's a nice operation even if you did not ask for it.

with:
According to Goral they are not doing this shit on RpgWatch but it seems RpgCodex is fair game.

In other words you're throwing shit hoping something will stick and are plainly lying, you've added RPG Watch too because why not, at least the list will be longer, who cares if it's not true. You're making false allegations against Vault Dweller because why not, you live in Romania so he can't sue you for defamation (not that anyone but us would care what someone writes on the Codex and certainly mods don't give a fuck whether you slander someone or not), you're stalking and you're losing it because you can't win in a discussion which you yourself bring up :D.
I know a lot of people are making fun of me but I would tell them this: Please wait until a game you like is on their shit list :)
You heard it guys, toro went apeshit because we hurt his feelings when we've shown that Age of Decadence is a better game than the game he likes.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Seriously though, I don't get it. We gave LK and Goral Fanboy tags before you even started this thread so what's the point of it? You're just going to end up getting tagged yourself. :P
 

Severian Silk

Guest
In other words you're throwing shit hoping something will stick and are plainly lying, you've added RPG Watch too because why not, at least the list will be longer, who cares if it's not true.
So the other five must be true then! Aha!
 

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